IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/copoec/v19y2008i2p94-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An institutional analysis of voter turnout: the role of primary type and the expressive and instrumental voting hypotheses

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Calcagno
  • Christopher Westley

Abstract

Recent events highlight primary type as an institutional variable that merits further examination in the economics literature on voter turnout. Using panel data for U.S. gubernatorial elections and treating primary type as a proxy for candidate deviation from the median voter, we test whether primary type changes voter turnout and whether that change is dominated by instrumental or expressive voting. The results show that states with more open primaries tend to have greater voter turnout in general elections and that this increase reflects the effect of open primaries on expressive voting.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Calcagno & Christopher Westley, 2008. "An institutional analysis of voter turnout: the role of primary type and the expressive and instrumental voting hypotheses," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 94-110, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:94-110
    DOI: 10.1007/s10602-007-9034-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10602-007-9034-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10602-007-9034-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    2. Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 1998. "Expressive voting and electoral equilibrium," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 149-175, April.
    3. Matsusaka, John G & Palda, Filip, 1999. "Voter Turnout: How Much Can We Explain?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 98(3-4), pages 431-446, March.
    4. Patterson, Samuel C. & Caldeira, Gregory A., 1983. "Getting Out the Vote: Participation in Gubernatorial Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(3), pages 675-689, September.
    5. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    6. Matsusaka, John G, 1993. "Election Closeness and Voter Turnout: Evidence from California Ballot Propositions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 313-334, August.
    7. John Ashworth & Benny Geys & Bruno Heyndels, 2006. "Everyone likes a winner: An empirical test of the effect of electoral closeness on turnout in a context of expressive voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 383-405, September.
    8. Matsusaka, John G, 1995. "Explaining Voter Turnout Patterns: An Information Theory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 84(1-2), pages 91-117, July.
    9. Gerber, Elisabeth R & Morton, Rebecca B, 1998. "Primary Election Systems and Representation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 304-324, October.
    10. Yoram Barzel & Eugene Silberberg, 1973. "Is the act of voting rational?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 51-58, September.
    11. Peter Kennedy, 2003. "A Guide to Econometrics, 5th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 5, volume 1, number 026261183x, December.
    12. Copeland, Cassandra & Laband, David N, 2002. "Expressiveness and Voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 110(3-4), pages 351-363, March.
    13. Greene, Kenneth V & Nelson, Phillip J, 2002. "If Extremists Vote How Do They Express Themselves? An Empirical Test of an Expressive Theory of Voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 425-436, December.
    14. Stephen Drinkwater & Colin Jennings, 2007. "Who are the expressive voters?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 179-189, July.
    15. George Stigler, 1972. "Economic competition and political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 91-106, September.
    16. Jac C. Heckelman, 2004. "A Spatial Model of U.S. Senate Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 118(1_2), pages 87-103, January.
    17. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    18. R. Tollison & T. Willett, 1973. "Some simple economics of voting and not voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 59-71, September.
    19. Christopher Westley & Peter T. Calcagno & Richard Ault, 2004. "Primary Election Systems and Candidate Deviation," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 365-376, Summer.
    20. Cherry, Todd L & Kroll, Stephan, 2003. "Crashing the Party: An Experimental Investigation of Strategic Voting in Primary Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 114(3-4), pages 387-420, March.
    21. Jacobson, Gary C., 1978. "The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 469-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephen Drinkwater & Colin Jennings, 2017. "Expressive voting and two-dimensional political competition: an application to law and order policy by New Labour in the UK," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 79-96, March.
    2. Jennings, Colin & Drinkwater, Stephen, 2012. "An Analysis of the Electoral Use of Policy on Law and Order by New Labour," SIRE Discussion Papers 2012-77, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    3. David Mitchell, 2023. "Covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 188-209, June.
    4. Arenas, Andreu, 2016. "Sticky votes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 12-25.
      • Andreu ARENAS, 2016. "Sticky Votes," LIDAM Reprints CORE 2763, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    5. Daniel D. Bonneau & John Zaleski, 2021. "The effect of California’s top-two primary system on voter turnout in US House Elections," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 1-21, March.
    6. Monica Escaleras & Peter T. Calcagno & William F. Shughart II, 2012. "Corruption and Voter Participation," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(6), pages 789-815, November.
    7. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2011. "Expressive Political Behaviour: Foundations, Scope and Implications," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 645-670, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gebhard Kirchgässner & Tobias Schulz, 2005. "Expected Closeness or Mobilisation: Why Do Voters Go to the Polls? Empirical Results for Switzerland, 1981 – 1999," CESifo Working Paper Series 1387, CESifo.
    2. Richard J. Cebula & Gigi M. Alexander, 2017. "Female Labor Force Participation and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the American Presidential Elections," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 8(2).
    3. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2011. "Expressive Political Behaviour: Foundations, Scope and Implications," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 645-670, July.
    4. Valentino Larcinese, 2007. "Does political knowledge increase turnout? Evidence from the 1997 British general election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 387-411, June.
    5. Lacombe, Donald J. & Coats, R. Morris & Shughart II, William F. & Karahan, Gökhan, 2016. "Corruption and Voter Turnout: A Spatial Econometric Approach," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 46(2), December.
    6. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden & Patricia E. Gaynor, 2008. "The Impact of the Repeat-Voting-Habit Persistence Phenomenon on the Probability of Voting in Presidential Elections," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 429-440, October.
    7. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden & Patricia E. Gaynor, 2008. "The Impact of the Repeat-Voting-Habit Persistence Phenomenon on the Probability of Voting in Presidential Elections," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 429-440, October.
    8. R. Urbatsch, 2012. "The paradox of voting intelligently," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 511-524, March.
    9. Brav, Alon & Cain, Matthew & Zytnick, Jonathon, 2022. "Retail shareholder participation in the proxy process: Monitoring, engagement, and voting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 492-522.
    10. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden & Patricia E. Gaynor, 2008. "The Impact of the Repeat‐Voting‐Habit Persistence Phenomenon on the Probability of Voting in Presidential Elections," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 429-440, August.
    11. Richard Cebula & Franklin Mixon, 2012. "Dodging the vote?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 325-343, February.
    12. Garey C. Durden & Richard J. Cebula & Patricia Gaynor, 2007. "The Impact of Social Conditioning (Internal Motivation) on the Probability of Voting," Working Papers 07-05, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    13. Damien Bol & André Blais & Jean-François Laslier, 2018. "A mixed-utility theory of vote choice regret," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 461-478, September.
    14. Fred Thompson, 1982. "Closeness counts in horseshoes and dancing ... and elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 305-316, January.
    15. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    16. João Amaro de Matos & Pedro Barros, 2004. "Social Norms and the Paradox of Elections’ Turnout," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 239-255, October.
    17. Fosco, Constanza & Laruelle, Annick & Sánchez, Angel, 2009. "Turnout Intention and Social Networks," IKERLANAK info:eu-repo/grantAgreeme, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    18. Dan Usher, 2014. "An alternative explanation of the chance of casting a pivotal vote," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(1), pages 105-138, February.
    19. Joseph McMurray, 2008. "Information and Voting: the Wisdom of the Experts versus the Wisdom of the Masses," Wallis Working Papers WP59, University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy.
    20. Claus Michelsen & Peter Boenisch & Benny Geys, 2014. "(De)Centralization and voter turnout: theory and evidence from German municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 469-483, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voter turnout; Primary voting; Expressive voting; Instrumental voting; D72; H11;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:94-110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.